Snapshot of 2011 housing market: More activity, lower prices

February 6, 2012

Snapshot of 2011 housing market: More activity, lower prices

The state of the region’s residential real-estate market depends upon your perspective. If you bought your home early in the first decade of the new millennium, you may be anxious about the value of your home but chances are you have built up some equity.

If you were unlucky enough to have bought your home in the second half of the decade, you might owe more money than your mortgage balance. The housing bubble that started in 2005 came to a shocking end in 2008 with the credit meltdown.

After more than two years of on-again, off-again federal tax credits, the housing market in 2011 had two things going for it: historic low mortgage rates and lots of inventory. Those two ingredients combined enticed some buyers back into the market.